Life for senior citizens in Solano County just became a lot easier. Yesterday, the county’s Department of Health and Social Services launched the website SolanoCares4Seniors.org, a one-stop tool aimed at seniors, their families, caregivers and service providers.

The launch was delivered at a special event at the Solano County Events Center in Fairfield, which was attended by several local media and political figures, including Fairfield Mayor Harry Price, Suisun City Mayor Pete Sanchez, Vacaville Mayor Len Augustine, District Attorney Krishna Abrams and representatives from the offices of Rep. John Garamendi, State Sen. Bill Dodd and Assemblymember Jim Frazier.

SolanoCares4Seniors was developed in connection with the Senior Coalition of Solano County and the Area Agency on Aging as a resources to meet the needs of seniors in the county. County Administrator Birgitta Corsello said the site was based on a culmination of years of input from the community.

“Many of you were the voices who shared your concerns that the county needed to do a better job of assembling information and providing access because there was a gap between the services we were providing and knowledge about where those services were and how you would access them,” she said in a short speech.

Corsello noted that two members of the Solano County Board of Supervisors took on the task of championing the initiative for an electronic resource guide, Jim Spering (District 3) and John Vasquez (District 4). Spering and Vasquez explained the county’s rationale for establishing SolanoCares4Seniors, namely that the senior community needs a simple way to learn about useful services, senior-focused events and national and statewide issues that could impact how they live. Spering noted that such information is available online but is scattered across several different websites and pages.

“There’s no one place people can go,” he said.

Spering said that one of the challenges of establishing SolanoCares4Seniors was meeting the needs of two classes of seniors: those who were technologically savvy and those who were older and not as used to changing technology.

“The website has to be developed in such a way that it meets those two groups of people,” he said.

“We tried to make it very user-friendly so that when people log into the site, it invites them into the site,” he added. “It’s not threatening, and it’s not overwhelming. It’s very comfortable to use.”

A major theme of the site that was mentioned throughout the presentations was “Get informed, get involved and get connected.” As Dr. Bela Matyas, a Solano County health officer, explained, this consisted of allowing seniors to get informed about issues facing them, getting involved in the community and getting connected to the various resources available to them.

“Its purpose is to be a service where we can provide community resources for seniors, for their families, caregivers and providers,” he said. “A one-stop shop that you can go to to find all of the information that is important for our seniors.”

The site features a “Service Directory,” which provides a series of buttons in such areas as places to live, caregivers, meal programs, medical supplies, health care, senior centers, transportation services, resources for veterans and more. Once any of these icons are clicked, the visitor will be taken to a comprehensive list of related services in their area.

Another feature on the site is the “Social Calendar” tool, which lists events in Solano and neighboring counties that may be of interest to seniors. These include anything from health fairs to fitness classes to community events like farmers markets and wine tastings. There are also a number of events that encourage seniors to be active, including yoga classes, nature hikes and even running events.

SolanoCares4Seniors also has a library which contains links to up-to-date information regarding senior-centered issues like disaster preparedness and the Affordable Care Act. Additionally, there is a “Legislate” tab where seniors can learn about bills at the state and federal level that could impact seniors, including the status of the legislation. Moreover, the site has a built-in email tool where seniors can send messages to talk to their local representatives at all levels of government about certain bills or issues and even suggest ideas for bills of their own.

Other features of the site include news related to seniors, information on prescription assistance and elder abuse prevention, and a function to make the print on the site larger. There is also a feedback tool for users to make suggestions to the site’s webmasters, including noting when information is out of date and potential events for the calendar listings.

“This is the first of what we hope to be several sites of this nature,” Matyas said. “The first one, because of a variety of obvious reasons, was a site for seniors. Our next site will be for disability services for child through adult. The disabled will be able to find the resources they need across the county.”

Matyas also noted that the county would be working on a similar site for families and children, although with several agencies in that category throughout the county, it would be a very complex site to build. Still, Matyas noted that it would be a necessary one.

The site is accessible at SolanoCares4Seniors.org.